


The U.S.-constructed $320 million pier built off Gaza’s coast has been damaged during inclement weather less than two weeks after it became operational.
It will take over a week for U.S. forces to rebuild the pier and get it operational again, according to Pentagon deputy spokeswoman Sabrina Singh.
United States Central Command said on Saturday that four Army vessels supporting the mission broke free from their moorings and washed ashore. Two of the vessels ended up anchored along the beach near the causeway, and two others ended up on the beach by the Israeli city of Ashkelon. One of the vessels that wound up near Ashkelon has been recovered, while the other is expected to be recovered within the next day, Singh said. The other two will be recovered in the near future as well.
Additionally, a portion of the causeway “separated from the pier” that’s anchored into the Gaza coast and resulted in damage, Singh said. The causeway, which is supposed to be anchored into the coast, will be detached, brought back to Ashdod, Israel, where it will be repaired, and then, it will have to be reinstalled.
“The trident here will be removed from its anchor position on the coast and towed back to Ashdod, where U.S. Central Command will conduct repairs,” Singh said. “The rebuilding and repairing of the pier will take at least over a week and, following completion, will need to be reanchored to the coast of Gaza.”
The pier had been operational for only about two weeks, though in that time, they had been able to get more than 1,000 metric tons of aid into Gaza, she said.
President Joe Biden announced in early March during his State of the Union address that he directed the military to build the pier to supplement, not replace, the humanitarian efforts throughout Gaza. Officials have said getting aid through the Gaza-Israeli land crossings has to be the primary method of getting aid into the enclave.
Cyprus plays a critical role in the international effort to get aid into Gaza via the pier.
Aid is screened and palletized in Cyprus, and it’s then loaded on commercial or military vessels that will travel from there to the pier, which is in the Mediterranean Sea. The aid then gets transported to smaller U.S. military vessels before going to the causeway. These are the vessels that washed ashore.
The smaller ships can get closer to the coast than bigger ships. The aid is then unloaded and put onto trucks that will be driven down the causeway and unloaded for U.N. distribution.
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Pentagon officials have not indicated a specific end date for the mission, though Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, the deputy commander of U.S. Central Command, recently told reporters that, historically, the weather conditions generally become less suitable for this mission by early September.
All of Gaza’s 2.2 million residents are facing acute food insecurity, according to Sonali Korde, the assistant to the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance.